Translation
The mystery of Easter Island’s still undeciphered script
If rongorongo emerged before any foreign business was transacted on the island, it would challenge our understanding of what writing was originally for
How the paralysed Franz Rosenzweig continued to translate the Bible
After being struck down by a neurodegenerative disease at the age of 36, the inspirational scholar pursued his biblical project with the twitch of one thumb
The wry humour of Franz Kafka
A masterly new translation of his Diaries reminds us that Kafka wasn’t solely the prophet of a century of dehumanisation
A web of rivalries: The Extinction of Irena Rey, by Jennifer Croft, reviewed
Eight translators gather to work on a novel written by their heroine, Irena Rey. But when she goes missing in a nearby forest, relations between them begin to fray
A home between worlds
When asked what it is we do, translators often resort to metaphors. We liken the act of translation to performing…
A very tangled web
Vanessa Salomon is an internationally successful translator. Clever, beautiful, privileged – ‘born in a trilingual household: French, English and money’…
As a writer, Richard Wagner was both sublime – and unreadable
No one any longer denies the immense significance of Wagner’s musical-dramatic achievement, even if they find it repellent. But his…
Strategies for seduction
The rough English translation of Kamasutra is pleasure (kama) treatise (sutra). In the West, since it was first (rather surreptitiously)…
A gift from beyond the grave
Andrew Motion finds a touching parallel between Virgil’s unfinished Aeneid and Seamus Heaney’s barely finished translation of Book VI
An innocent abroad
For those who read the weekly music press during the 1980s, David Quantick’s was a name you could rely on.…
High life
Athens Viewed from Mars, this is a sunny, peaceful city. Up close, however, things ain’t what they used to be.…
Poetic injustice
‘Why do another translation of Homer?’ Richmond Lattimore asked in the foreword to his own great translation of the Iliad…
Europe in sixty languages
So Basque is an ergative language! Well, I never. I couldn’t have told you that a week ago. I even…
Letters
Some doctors write Sir: Professor Meirion Thomas (‘Dangerous medicine’, 17 August) may be an excellent surgeon but he is uninformed…
